Monday, July 30, 2012

Tournament Report 1: Games 16-18

Today was the first official 6th edition tournament in our area. I started out the day great against my Necron rival, Ben, but after that everything started going downhill...

Game 16

Opponent: Ben Witt, Necron Kin

My list: Modified Mechron Hybrid: Dropped Harbinger of despair for a harbinger of the storm, and mindshackle on both the overlord and destroyer lord.

His list: Necron Air Superiority (same as my last game): 2x Overlord w/ mss, warscythe, phase shifter, orb. One leading a unit of 10 immortals in a nightscythe, the other leading a unit of 15 warriors on foot. 9 warriors in an ark w/ harbinger of storm. 10 Deathmarks in an nightscythe w/ harbinger of destruction, lord w/ orb, phase shifter. 2 Doomscythes

Mission: Big Guns Never Tire, Dawn of War Deployment

Highlights: This was game started off quick, My Destroyer Lord rolled the outflank warlord trait, so I kept the wraithstar in reserve to outflank. We had 5 objectives, one in mid and 2 in each of our deep left fields. We essentially deployed in opposite corners with no intention of moving in on eachother's primary forces. I went first and all of my reserves came in on turn 2. Both of my fliers immediately left combat airspace and my wraithstar outflanked right into his primary warrior blob on the ground. Early game the fighting took place in his back field with him bringing his deathmarks to help shut down the wraiths, and me bringing in my immortals and other warrior squad to take down the deathmarks. The wraiths easily took down his warrior squad and warlord, then his ghost ark, and finally the warrior squad inside the ark due to some bad dice luck on his side. Later game his fliers worked on harassing my deployment zone but I managed to pick them off one at a time. The game ended with me holding 2 objectives to his one, I killed 2 of his heavies and he killed one of mine. He did manage first blood but I got linebreaker and slay the warlord.

MVP Moment: I managed only minor wounds on his deathmark squad, but he failed his leadership and they ran off the board... Essentially Speeding up my progress towards victory by at least a whole turn... Which effectively clinched the game for me because it was relatively close up until the final turn.

Result: Victory, WLD record: 11-3-2.

Tournament WLD: 1-0-0

Game 17

Opponent: Jason Peterson, Imperial Bastard

His list: Imperial Skywatch: Jason went into this tournament correctly anticipating a heavy aircraft metagame. He brought: A company command squad, a huge blob platoon w/ at least 5 lascannons and all sorts of plasma and powerweapons and other ridiculousness. 3 Vendettas, 3 Hydras. And a Space wolves contingent including a Wolf Priest, a Wolf Lord, and a 5 man grey hunters squad. Also, the vendettas had dudes in them apparently. Oh and he had an aegis defense line w/ the autocannon upgrade.

Mission: Purge The Alien, Hammer and Anvil deployment

Highlights: This Game was interesting. Jason was one of our 'local' Regional 'Ard Boys champions and he even went to Nationals last year. He is one of the strongest players in the area and a bit of a rival of mine. I knew going in to this game that it was gonna be a tough match, my one advantage I had over him was that I was much more familiar with 6th edition than he. Unfortunately I have only a little bit of experience against Imperial guard and I always have the hardest time wrapping my head around their lists. It also doesnt help that every time I play against Jason, it's usually second or final round in a tournament where stakes are high and mistakes are capitalized upon, Also, I'm always quite sleep deprived when I play him... Which is par for the course, because I always work the graveyard shift before every tournament. Anyway things were bumpy for me from the get go, I failed every single Jink save I attempted this game and quickly lost all of my ground vehicles, meanwhile my fliers refused to come on until turn 4 and even when they came on they failed to even scratch a vendetta. I did manage to down one of the vendettas, killing all the guys inside except one, who promptly ran off the board... The Vendettas essentially had free reign to shred my side of the board with impunity. Meanwhile the wraithstar took major losses before they were able to get sunk into close combat. They did manage to take out one of hydras and the grey hunters before failing miserably when they charged the blob squad. He managed to pick me apart piece by piece as the game went on eventually claiming 13 victory points to my 7. Overall it was a great game against one of my favorite opponents who always gives me a run for my money. After the tournament he lent me his Codex so I can better learn his army.

MVP Moment: I had some bad luck with the wraithstar on turn two, when he managed to insta-gib two of my wraiths with lascannons and my destroyer lord failed his look out sirs resulting in him frying to ap2 weaponry. This severely weakened my wraithstar and resulted in them failing to do anything particularly spectacular when I needed them to.

Result: Loss, WLD record: 11-4-2.

Tournament WLD: 1-1-0

Game 18

Opponent: Nick Corbett

His list: Eldar Wraithspam: This is easily one of the most ridiculous lists I have ever faced. He had two ten man wraithguard squads w/ an enhancement warlock. One was led by a farseer w/ fortune and prescience the other was led by Eldrad who had fortune, invisibility, the power that grants a 4++, and psychic shriek. He also had 3 wraithlords with scatterlaser/ EML, a squad of striking scorpions, and a squad of fire dragons

Mission: The Relic, Vanguard Deployment

Highlights: This is probably one of the most frustrating lists that a necron player can face, it is doubly so when said Necron player is exhausted and demoralized from an early tournament loss. The missin being relic made things even worse... The game began with the Wraithstar charging into Eldrad's unit... Failing miserably and being summarily wiped out. After that I spent the entire rest of the game attempting to kite the wraithguard units and unloading on them with ungodly amounts of fire power (Roughly 600 shots over the course of the game) And only managing to kill 4-5 wraithguards. (2+ re-rollable cover save on a toughness 6 unit is kinda good apparently) He Managed to claim the relic early and I had no way of getting it off of him due to him taking down my overlord early.

MVP Moment: The Wraiths failing miserably early on put me on the back step from the start and there was no way I could recover after that point.

Result: Loss, WLD record: 11-5-2.

Tournament WLD: 1-2-0

So, My first tournament out of the gate was largely disappointing but I learned a lot over the course of these games and I have a ton of new ideas I wanna try out, stay tuned for more as I begin to experiment with my list a bit more...